Posts Tagged ‘Palestinians’

A former 10-year-old Lebanese girl used as a human shield by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon told Fox News “Kelly File” last week, “The Palestinians have perfected using children to win the world’s sympathy, and this goes back 30 years. The Palestinians have perfected the propaganda war.”

“My mother begged the Palestinian leader who used to park their rocket launchers in front of our homes, launch Israel fully knowing that when Israel retaliates, we will make the evening news,” she told Kelly File.

Gabriel added, “They would move their rocket launcher from home to home, fire one rocket and move away. When Israel retaliated,…guess what was on Lebanese television that night? People wounded because of Israel, and Lebanon television was saying look how horrible Israelis are. They are killing children.

“The Palestinians…cannot win militarily against Israel so they use their own children as disposable collateral in order to win the war of public opinion against Israel.”

Gabriel, an American journalist and activist, was born as Nour Saman in Lebanon. She has said that her life was saved by Israeli soldiers in the Litani maneuver in 1978, when she had been warned by someone of an Islamic attack on Christians.

Her constant condemnation of Islam has made her bait for criticism not only by Muslims but also by The New York Times. In an article by Deborah Solomon in 2008 its magazine, she called Gabriel a “radical Islamophobe,” a label that was protested by 250 people.

In 2007, she told Christians United for Israel annual conference, “The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil… They have no soul, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call ‘Allah’, which is very different from the God we believe….”

Palestinian terrorists may be firing one rocket at Israeli civilians every 10 minutes, but that hasn’t altered Jews’ approach to treating Arab victims of Hamas from Gaza and the Palestinian Authority. Currently, three adults and eight children from Gaza are hospitalised at Rambam Hospital, in addition to three adults and two children from the PA. In addition, seven PA Arabs have been treated this week at the hospital’s outpatient clinics. Additional patients from Gaza are scheduled for treatments later this week.

Most of the hospitalized children are in the pediatric oncology or nephrology wards. Of these, the majority is under the age of three, and they are accompanied by relatives. Additional medical problems and the need for long-term treatment makes lengthy hospitalizations standard for these children.

Yazid Falah, the hospital’s coordinator for Palestinian patients, said medical cooperation between Israel and the PA continues despite the rocket fire.

“Despite the security situation, and despite the fact that both sides are fighting, all continues as usual in the realm of medical cooperation. Even in times of war we continue to receive patients and give them the care they need—children and adults,” Falah said.

Falah added that while treatments for all patients have continued unabated, the fighting between Israel and Hamas has created an unmistakably difficult situation for many patients. “On the one hand they are in Israel and see the consequences of Hamas’ actions and how people get hurt on this side of the border. On the other hand, they fear for the lives of their family members back in Gaza,” Falah said. “There are those who have told me they are ashamed of what Hamas is doing; others say they are afraid of how people will talk and look at them here in the hospital. Some say they are afraid to return to Gaza. Others just don’t know what to think. They have a life there and see the kind of life people have here.

“At the end of the day, they simply want to live in peace, but it is clear to them that the situation has changed. They believe the situation is only going to get worse,” Falah said.

“When the hostilities escalated, the Palestinian patients feared a cold reception,” says Falah, “we explained that would never happen in an Israeli hospital. Here you see people and not nationalities. Many times, Israeli patients reach out to their Palestinian “neighbors” to help them feel more comfortable and to encourage them. Eventually, all are in the same boat.”

You learn interesting new things when you visit different towns and Minyanim. Today I learned of a Ramban on Parsha Chukat (the weekly Torah portion that is read in on Shabbat) that I hadn’t seen before, courtesy of Ari Fuld, who gave the Rabbi’s drasha in his neighborhood’s shul.

In Bamidbar 21:1-3 it says,

1:. The Canaanite, King of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel had come by way of Attarim, and he waged war against Israel and took from them a captive.

2:. Israel made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If You deliver this people into my hand, I shall consecrate their cities.”

3: The Lord heard Israel’s voice and delivered the Canaanite. He destroyed them and [consecrated] their cities, and he called the place Hormah.

Seemingly the Canaanites attacked Israel, and to Israel’s surprise managed to take a hostage.

Israel then realized something was off, because they shouldn’t have suffered any losses.

So they then pray to God that they should be victorious over this unspecified, enemy nation.

They then destroy the “Canaanites”.

The Targum Yonatan Ben Uziel explicitly translates Canaanite in this first sentence as Amalek, in the third sentence he reverts back and calls them Canaanites.

Why is that?

Rashi points out that just a few chapters earlier in Bamidbar 13:29 it say:

29: The Amalekites dwell in the Negev land, while the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountainous region. The Canaanites dwell on the coast and alongside the Jordan.”

This king of Arad should have been Amalek, not a Canaanite.

So what’s going on here?

The explanation given is that Amalek believed that Israel could defeat them in battle.

They hoped to confuse Israel and God by changing their clothing and language, pretending to be local Canaanites. Their plan was that Israel would pray to defeat the Canaanites and not Amalek, and thus, by praying for the wrong thing, Israel would lose, and they, Amalek, would end up victorious.

But Israel, after a hostage was taken, quickly realizes that something is off, and that they obviously weren’t fighting the Canaanites like they thought.

So they modified their prayer to be generic towards whichever nation it is they were fighting. And of course, as we know, they won.

As an aside, the hostage that was taken is believed to have been a foreign maidservant – not even an Israelite. But Israel decided to fight full-force to save one of their own, even a foreign maidservant (an important and relevant lesson for today).

Anyway, after modifying their prayers appropriately, Israel is victorious, as if Amalek were the Canaanites they thought they were originally fighting.

Now here’s the most interesting part:

The Ramban (Nachmanidies) say here about the Canaanite/Amalek:

“They [Amalek] came from a far away land, (specifically) to fight with Israel.”

Doesn’t that sound exactly like another group of people pretending to be indigenous, whose sole goal often appears to be nothing more than to kill or kidnap Jews, and destroy the Jewish state? (The answer is yes).

By the way, the Ramban mentions the maidservant was saved – may we also be zocheh that Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar and Naftali Fraenkel be safely saved and returned home.

Dozens of Palestinian hunger strikers in Israeli jails ended their protest Wednesday. Dozens of terrorists were hospitalised in Israel as a result of the strike, which also prompted Knesset discussions about force-feeding the prisoners.

No details of the agreement with the Israel Prison Service were announced, but Shawqi al-Ayasa, the minister of prisoner affairs for the newly-formed Palestinian unity government, told Agence France Presse that “a major portion of prisoners’ demands had been met.”

As of this writing, Israeli officials have not reacted to the announcement.

According to Palestinian reports, Qadura Fares, a former minister in the Palestinian Legislative Council and long-time advocate for Palestinian prisoners, said said the agreement “states that the prisoners stay in hospital until they recover, and then they will be taken to the prisons they were in before the strike while Israel ends punitive measures against them.”

The measures included limited visits by family members as well as removal of televisions and other amenities from their jail rooms.

Palestinian Authority security services assaulted a large group of journalists Wednesday. The group was covering a Hamas protest against the detention of Hamas members by the Palestinian Authority at Lion Square in downtown Ramallah.

According to the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedom (MADA) a Ramallah-based media watchdog group, PA security forces insulted the journalists, confiscated equipment, and prevented them from filming the event.
One victim, Filistin al-Yom cameraman Hadi Al-Dibbs, told MADA that plainclothes security forces attacked and punched him, then tried to seize his camera and prevented him from taking photos. Another man, an independent photographer named Mohammed Jaradat, said police broke into his office overlooking the square having spotted him photographing from the balcony. He was detained and police confiscated his camera. Others were beaten badly enough to require medical treatment from the Red Crescent Society.

In a statement posted on the MADA website, the organization said there has been a sharp escalation since the Palestinian Unity Government agreement was signed on June 2. The organization also demanded the Palestinian Authority investigate the attack and hold the individuals involved responsible.

However, one of the wounded journalists said he did not expect the Palestinian Authority to follow through on the incident. Speaking on condition of anonymity because he is afraid of government retribution, the journalist said those calling on the Palestinian Authority to show responsibility simply do not understand who they are dealing with.

“You want Abu Mazen to ‘investigate’?”, the journalist told The Jewish Press. “The Palestinian Authority has been harassing journalists since it was founded. Why do you think this episode will be any different?”